First Soccer Action of the Season

Last evening was my first opportunity this year to shoot college soccer as I traveled to Oneonta, NY for the Hartwick College women's match against Wells College, of Aurora, NY. Game time was 7:00 P.M. and this time of year that means starting in late daylight and ending under full artificial lighting with everything in between.

I was using a Canon EOS 7D with battery grip and a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens. opening up the lens to f/2.8 and leaving there is a constant in order to gain separation from the background and isolate the main subject or subjects. I wanted shutter speeds of at least 1/750th of a second and started out at ISO 1,600 using evaluative metering, achieving shutter speeds generally between 1/750 and 1/1500.

By 7:30, though, ISO 3,200 was needed for the same shutter speed range. I also switched to a manual shutter speed of 1/1000 and then 1/750 once the daylight faded and the lighting was constant.

Focusing was far more accurate with this Canon lens than with the Sigma 50-150mm lens I was using last season for sports. Returning home from the game at around 11:00 P.M., I had 61 images processed from RAW by midnight and uploaded to a Zenfolio gallery by 2:00 A.M. thanks to a Time Warner Cable Internet glitch forcing me to resort to my still active Verizon DSL connection.

Here are a few samples from the game.  To view the gallery in its entirety, go to http://trulandphoto.zenfolio.com/hartwick2015

UPDATE 9/14/15: Shots from yesterday's match added to the gallery.